<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
<meta charset="UTF-8">
<title>Hell is Empty by Mangacat</title>
<style type="text/css">

body { background-color: #ffffff; }
.CI {
text-align:center;
margin-top:0px;
margin-bottom:0px;
padding:0px;
}
.center   {text-align: center;}
.cover    {text-align: center;}
.full     {width: 100%; }
.quarter  {width: 25%; }
.smcap    {font-variant: small-caps;}
.u        {text-decoration: underline;}
.bold     {font-weight: bold;}
</style>
</head>
<body>
<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/25912303">Hell is Empty</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mangacat/pseuds/Mangacat'>Mangacat</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Dance with the Devil [1]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Justified</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Alternate Universe - Supernatural Elements, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Anxiety, Canon-Typical Violence, Friendship, Implied/Referenced Domestic Violence, M/M, Pre-Canon, Pre-Slash, Prequel, Shamanism, Trauma</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-08-15</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-08-15</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-05 02:41:24</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>6,952</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/25912303</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mangacat/pseuds/Mangacat</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>In a prologue to a much larger world, Boyd Crowder and Raylan Givens are pieces of a puzzle, unaware of how they fit together.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Boyd Crowder &amp; Raylan Givens, Boyd Crowder/Raylan Givens, Boyd Crowder/Raylan Givens (preslash)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Dance with the Devil [1]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/1880563</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>6</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>23</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Hell is Empty</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>As the summary implies, this story precedes another one, which I started writing beforehand (thinking it would be that one Justified fic I wanted to write for years to get it out of my system) until I realized that it needed something both concerning the mythology and their relationship that I couldn’t fit anywhere and yep, now I got a verse. So this is basically a prequel, though it is self-contained, and while I think I’m close to half in the main story, I’m not yet sure when that will start to go up, since I want it mostly pinned down so I can maintain a regular update schedule (I haven’t posted something as scary as a long-fic WIP in more than a decade, AHa..hahaha). I will try to get there soon though. Meanwhile this is oneshot for your pleasure, I hope more than everything that I got their voices right, which is my biggest ARRGGHhh obviously. I'm very stoked to be able to post something though, and of course all thanks to silkylustre, who continues to hold my hand through all the flailing and betas like a champ even though it's not her fandom at all. I’d love to know what y’all think. Here goes nothing!</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>She approaches the bridge with slow, deliberate steps, one hand weighed down by a small bag overstuffed with hastily packed clothes, the floral hem of a dress fluttering where it’s caught in the zipper. Her other arm is tightly wrapped around a child on her hip. The little boy has his face pressed into her neck and could be mistaken for being asleep if it weren’t for the rapid fire breaths bellowing his little chest. <br/>“Who goes there?”<br/>She draws up short at the words spoken with authority as a young black man steps onto the bridge, right out of the shadows. <br/>“Frances.” When he raises his eyebrow in askance, she balls a fist around the handle of the bag, but relents: “Givens.” She quashes the urge to throw a glance over her shoulder, as if the utterance of her husband’s name was enough to conjure Arlo at her back, but the young man sees the aborted movement all the same. She rolls her shoulders and thrusts out her chin, continuing: “You’re the young Limehouse?”<br/>He nods and introduces himself with a calm baritone and his hands open, palms up: “Ellstin.”<br/>“I would ask your family for their hospitality.”</p>
<p>He sizes her up for a moment, tall and strong, though he has barely passed his teenage years, if even. But it’s the keen intelligence glimmering in his eyes that makes her feel uncomfortably exposed until he turns to have a silent exchange over her shoulder with another young man who has materialized on the other side of the embankment. He then raises his hand in a snapping wave, already trudging towards the far side of the bridge, clearly expecting her to follow him. Before she can lose her nerve and turn around, she walks after him in silence through the twilight gloom, feeling her son's little heart thumping rapidly against her chest. Past the halfway mark, she can’t help turning her head back, half expecting her husband to come racing down the creek road towards them, but there’s no one but the young man now standing as a lone sentry in the waning light. </p>
<p>~*~*~</p>
<p>Frances blinks awake slowly with the first light of the day peeking through the small round window opening high in the log wall of the cabin. She tightens her arm to assure herself of her son’s presence; the weight of the little body warm where it’s pressed into her side. For the first time in days, she draws a free breath past the ache in her limbs and exhales into the brisk morning chill. </p>
<p>She’s not here to mooch on people’s hospitality just for the sake of it. She just needs a few days respite and shelter, but there’s no reason not to get to work to return the favour. So after breakfast is done, she walks down the drive to where the roads of the hollow meet in a bit of a village square to find a group of women gathered at work, shucking corn and peeling potatoes, preparing for what looks like a barbecue for at least half the inhabitants of Noble’s Hollow. They let her sit down and help without comment, chatting freely while a gaggle of children is running around them, their shrieks of playful laughter sometimes deafeningly loud. Raylan stays plastered to her side for all of five minutes before the rambunctious play all around him draws him out. The other women don’t exclude her from their conversation on purpose, but it’s clear all the same that she has little insight to the dynamics of their community and less to contribute to the ongoing gossip. She doesn’t mind though, just as content to let the chatter wash over her like a swirling brook, looking up from her chores once in a while to find Raylan’s light brown mop of hair bopping animatedly in a sea of natural curls. </p>
<p>She isn’t really sure what drags her out of the lull, maybe it’s that special sense for trouble you develop living in a house where you always have to look out for that sky to turn green before a twister touches down. In a second, her gaze flies over to where the children are huddled into a tight knot that is close, conspiratorial, <i>silent</i>. <br/>“Raylan?” <br/>Her son’s head bobs up and for a split second, he meets her eyes before another boy barrels into the group and claps Raylan on the shoulder like a tag of some sort. And before she can call him in earnest, her boy streaks off in the direction the other had come from in a dead run, heading towards a porch, where she can see a grizzled old woman sitting in a rocking chair, overlooking the whole square. </p>
<p>She’s up and yelling after Raylan in an instant, for who knows what kind of daft ideas those children have put together – but there is no way she’s going to reach him before he gets to whatever dare they’ve set him up with. And at a glance, it looks like it is in truth no more than silly child’s play, as his little feet pound up the porch steps at full speed and he veers off at the last possible moment before colliding with the old woman to thunder down the stairs again in a parable arch. She hears the children cheering from far away, heart pounding high in her chest with an eerie certainty that something is going to happen, even if she has no idea what calamity could lie ahead. And before Frances can berate herself for being so dramatic, before Raylan actually makes it all the way around, she sees the old woman’s hand snap up with surprising alacrity, catching the young boy by the elbow so he stumbles over his own running legs and barely avoids crumbling in a heap at her feet. She hears Raylan cry out and the children gasp and scatter around her, fast as minnows in a stream. </p>
<p>Everything stops dead in the square, except for her rapid steps and Raylan’s more and more frantic struggles against the iron grip on his arm, a frisson of tension electrifying the air. <br/>“I’m so sorry, please, he wasn’t going to do anything. He’s a good boy.”<br/>The screen door beside the rocking chair opens and a young black woman steps out with a puzzled frown, clearly investigating the ruckus.<br/>“Mama Dee, what’s the matter…?”<br/>The old woman shushes her with a sharp hiss and she draws up short, meeting Frances’s eyes with a small shake of her head. So they stand there frozen but for Raylan’s continued and fruitless attempts to break free with barely suppressed whimpers, while the old woman stares at him through what Frances realizes now is a haze of milky white corneas. Blind, and yet oddly focused. </p>
<p>“This your boy, Missy?”<br/>The clouded eyes sweep over to fix on a point right over Frances’ shoulder, striking her with how <i>seen</i> she feels regardless. <br/>“Y…yes.”<br/>The woman – Mama Dee, it looks like – hums in response, the furrows on her forehead deepening with thought. <br/>“Hmmm. This boy’s soul is torn.” Raylan has stilled, trembling in her unrelenting grip with nothing but suppressed sobs. ”Half of it is asleep.”<br/>Frances feels cold sweat break out on her back, while the old woman quiets, eyebrows raised as if she expects her to know what to do with that. It’s a fool’s peril to discard a pronouncement like that from an elder, she’s known enough wise women in her family to be sure she should heed that warning. Doesn’t mean she understands though. <br/>“I’m sorry, I… what does that mean?”<br/>Mama Dee sighs with a slight shake of her head and lets go of Raylan so abruptly that the little boy stumbles over his own feet. He falls into Frances' hastily opened arms, where he clings like a limpet, head tucked underneath her chin. </p>
<p>Mama Dee crooks her fingers towards the young woman by her side: “Ada, come here…” and gives her a couple of whispered instructions that Frances can’t make out. At once the young woman bustles off into the house, leaving Frances to stare at Mama Dee, still waiting for answers. <br/>“Come here, child. Sit down.”<br/>Mama Dee gestures to her right, where a little stool is perched next to her on the porch. Her attention seems to be back on the square, blind eyes staring in the middle distance. Frances throws a glance over her shoulder to find everyone minding their own business again, or at least it looks like it. Then she pulls herself up straight, pressing her hand into Raylan’s back to keep him close, before climbing the steps and sitting down as gingerly as she can. </p>
<p>“What’s your name?”<br/>“Frances Givens.”<br/>Mama Dee inclines her head again as if she’s waiting for something more. “Née McKinley.”<br/>“Ah… you got family in them Hills then.”<br/>“Yes, long estranged, though.”<br/>“Hmmm, but you know the stories. Of the things that go in the dark.”<br/>She thinks of the stories in her family, of warriors walking in the skins of animals, of creatures preying on the lifeblood of their fellow men – some tales more fantastical than others. Some of them more true than others. <br/>“I… I guess, though I wouldn’t…”<br/>“Girl, if you’ve got Hill blood, you know what’s out there, and what isn’t.”<br/>“I… yes, I do.” </p>
<p>Mama Dee nods, satisfied, and starts rocking gently in her chair. <br/>“Now, then you know that there’s spirits everywhere, some good, some bad, some… lost.”<br/>The milky eyes rove over Frances and Raylan, unfocused now, but intent on the tale she’s telling. <br/>“And while some of those spirits are content to move bodiless around us, or move on in other cases, sometimes it so happens that one will steal itself into the grace of a young soul waiting to be born.”<br/>Frances presses her lips into a thin line and involuntarily tightens her grip on her son, noticing then that the trembling has stopped and Raylan has turned to watch Mama Dee, following her every word with keen eyes, more intent and wiser than a boy barely grown out of his toddler years ought to look. </p>
<p>“A good one might be a companion, fold itself in with the unborn child so they embrace each other until the boundaries blur and they grow up into a man together as one. A malevolent wraith might devour the young soul entirely, take its place and grow up to wreak havoc again and again. And a lost spirit…” she reaches over with her weathered fingers to brush a few light strands of hair from Raylan’s forehead, which the small boy accepts now without even a flinch, “… one of those might latch onto a young one to find refuge, carve out a place for itself to hide and sleep and dream until that life is all lived out and it goes wandering once more.”<br/>The old woman turns again towards Frances, this time pinning her with a gaze that is disturbingly accurate. Frances feels Raylan lean into her with a little sigh and she marvels at his fluttering lashes and finds him falling asleep, getting heavy against her side. Snapping her eyes up to Mama Dee, she feels tension coil tighter inside herself in return, trying to wrestle with the idea that if she reads right what the wise woman is trying to say, the child in her arms might not be all hers.</p>
<p>“And not all of those spirits need in their former life to have been human.”<br/>That pronouncement stalls the breath in her lungs and turns the blood in her veins to ice. It takes a conscious effort not to hold her son close and run. <br/>“What are you saying?”<br/>“There is the shard of another soul lodged inside your son that is old, and powerful. And the fact that it’s been around for so long is all the proof you need that it did not belong to an ordinary man. But it’s dormant, for now. Like as not, it’ll do no more than lead him into a life searching… not knowing what or why. There’s worse fates to be had and it is unlikely to change in his lifetime."<br/>Frances knows the words on their face should comfort her, but she has the uncanny feeling that Mama Dee knows more than she’s saying. <br/>“Unlikely, but… possible? And what would happen if it were to… wake?”<br/>It’s Mama Dee’s turn to press her lips into a thin line and she shakes her head minutely. <br/>“Who can say? It might not affect him at all, it might swallow him up whole and take over. Or anything in between. Until it were to happen, there’s no way to know.”<br/>Frances feels a tear of unfettered frustration roll down her cheek as she tries to keep her cool for the child now slumbering in her arms. <br/>“But… what can I do?”</p>
<p>Before Mama Dee can answer, the door behind her opens and Ada steps back out on the porch. She bows down to whisper something into Mama Dee’s ear and hands her what looks like a small token on a leather string. The old woman rolls it between her fingers until she seems satisfied and reaches out to dangle it in front of Frances with an encouraging wave of her hand. When she takes and examines it, she finds the amulet to be a small wooden disk, barely bigger than her thumbnail, one half of the wood smooth and oily, the other half rough and blackened like charcoal. It dangles on a leather string that is barely long enough to fit over a child’s head. <br/>“Witch hazel,” Mama Dee explains, ”carved from a trunk that’s been struck by lightning. The wood helps keep the spirit in balance, and the path that’s struck in it will strengthen the natural barrier between the waking and the asleep, so that his soul remains calm, as it is now. Make sure he never takes it off if you can help it. Keep him out of the dark if you can. And pray he never crosses paths with a biter. You can’t do no more than that.”</p>
<p>Frances feels her throat click when she swallows and her hand starts to tremble around the string, taking in the clue Mama Dee has dropped on what kind of entity she thinks they might be dealing with. In her heart of hearts, Frances wants to throw the necklace back at the old woman and dismiss her claims as too outrageous and superstitious to be believed. But she has these hills in her bones and all the wishful thinking in the world isn’t going to change her certainty about things being out there, more unfathomable and dangerous than the eye can see. Besides, a token like that in its specific nature is most certainly going to be hard to come by and not easily given. So she lowers her hand and slips the leather band over Raylan’s head, tugging it down carefully so that the amulet comes to rest right over his breastbone. The boy doesn’t wake, oblivious to the burden that’s just dropped on his mother’s shoulders and she will fight to keep it that way. Just like she will fight to keep her son well away from harm. Murmuring the calm, dulcet tones of her favourite lullaby to his ears, she softly rocks Raylan in his sleep. </p>
<p>~*~ Fifteen years later ~*~</p>
<p>When Helen hears the obnoxious honk outside in the driveway – as if you couldn’t hear that piece of junk truck rumbling close from a quarter mile away – she whips a couple of slices of French Toast on a plate and walks out of the kitchen just as the tell-tale rumble of busy feet thunders down the stairs. Raylan slides to a stop in front of her and snatches the toast from the plate, hissing when he realizes it’s still hot enough to burn his fingers. <br/>“Thanks Aunt Helen, ouch, motherf… can’t you…?”<br/>“Do you really want to finish that sentence?” she asks, with a raised eyebrow.<br/>“No?” he answers with half the toast crammed into his mouth now. <br/>“Good choice. So long as you don’t deign to get up at a sensible hour to be ready for breakfast a minute before you have to leave, I won’t deign to take your feelings or the state of your fingertips into account.”<br/>“Yes, Aunt Helen.”</p>
<p>She sighs, wondering how his stomach can possibly handle him wolfing down his food like that every morning without him developing an ulcer before he’s even twenty. Which is in all likelihood the case in point. The horn sounds again up the driveway and her eyes flicker towards the door when she sees Raylan tense in preparation of the familiar argument. <br/>“I wish you would stop riding to work with that Crowder boy.”<br/>“Helen… just because Arlo and Bo had another falling out, don’t mean Boyd and I need to be at each other’s throats as well.”<br/>“Hmm, you never used to care much for each other in school though.”<br/>“Well, maybe we should have. Boyd is certainly a better conversator than just about anyone on the baseball team, even if the sense he makes goes over my head half of the time.” <br/>She notes the bitterness hiding behind the jovial words about his former teammates and the way he obviously still nurses the hurt over how his supposed friends dealt with him in the wake of the Incident with Dickie Bennet. She doesn’t say anything when he stuffs the half eaten and the spare toast into his lunch box and just sets the plate down on the sideboard. <br/>“Besides, I don’t see anybody in this house buying me a car any time soon. And if I take the truck to work, it’ll be up the mountain all day and how will you get around?”</p>
<p>Helen huffs and sticks a cigarette between her lips, thinking of the stack of Benjamins that she’s got squared away in her hidey hole for a more important purpose and follows him to the screen door. She squints at the truck idling up the drive and blows the smoke sharply out of the side of her mouth. <br/>“That boy will get you into trouble.”<br/>“Yes.” Raylan presses a kiss to her cheek absentmindedly. “And when he does, I’ll have deserved it.”<br/>He throws her a wink and bounds down the steps and up the drive, leaving her once again musing about how long their luck will hold until what’s necessary turns into the inevitable. </p>
<p>~*~*~</p>
<p>When Raylan opens the passenger door and scrambles into the truck, Boyd opens with a dry greeting: <br/>“Raylan, so glad you could finally ensure we’re not quite late this fine morn, again,” and with a rakish grin continues, “Are you ready for today’s Dance with the Devil?” before throwing the car into drive and peeling off with a spray of gravel. <br/>“Boyd, I wish you would stop saying that!” <br/>Raylan groans and drags his hand down over his face. <br/>Boyd drifts into the first turn with much higher speed than is advisable and not for the first time Raylan regrets that the truck doesn’t come equipped with an oh-shit-handle.<br/>“Why?”</p>
<p>He opts to roll down the window and clamp his fingers onto the roof to avoid sliding all over the bench seat while he fixes Boyd with a baleful glare. <br/>“Because you’re inviting the wrath of the Lord to come down on you with a stroke of very bad luck one of these days, speaking prideful shit out loud like that. And seeing as it is my usual lot to stand rather close to you while we spend our days in a hole hundreds of feet underground, the chance of something very unpleasant coming down on both our heads quite literally grows exponentially.”<br/>Boyd takes another corner too sharply and throws him a look under a raised eyebrow.<br/>“Exponentially, huh? I hadn’t pegged you for someone familiar with the concept.”<br/>“Shut up. I know math.”<br/>“And I know mines. Trust me, Raylan. If something’s fixing to come down on our heads in the deep, I’ll know. Besides, you know what they say about me – I’ve got the Devil’s luck.”</p>
<p>They are on the straight ass highway now, so Raylan feels comfortable letting go, uninclined to contradict Boyd on his point. When he rests his hands in his lap, he doesn’t realize he’s brushing his thumbs in slow circles across the wooden disk that is held between two braided leather straps around his left wrist until Boyd glances over and catches him at it. <br/>“Where’d you get that? I’ve been wondering for a while now.”<br/>Raylan stills his movements, trying to make it look casual as he mulls over what to say, since there are quite a few layers to that question. Boyd will know if he brushes him off, but accept it without comment. There’s something inside Raylan that wants to talk about it, but he’s unsure they have that kind of relationship. Yet. They didn’t use to run in the same circles in school, knew each other from parties and such, but it’s only since they both started working at the mine that they’ve got to talking and actually being friends. </p>
<p>“My mother made it for me,” Raylan hears himself say, as if from far away, ”Well, she made it when the necklace the amulet was on got too tight and worn to keep it on without fear of losing it one day.”<br/>He turns the bracelet on his wrist a couple of times. It’s just plain and manly enough so that he can get away with wearing some kind of <i>jewellery</i> on a daily basis. He can feel Boyd’s unbridled curiosity bubble over him in waves. They haven’t shared that much personal stuff with each other on top of the kind of family history that has seeped into the soil over generations, known in tight knit communities such as theirs through a weird sort of osmosis. <br/>“I don’t know where she actually got the pendant before that. I… can’t really remember a time when I haven’t worn it. In some way.” <br/>Boyd hums under his breath, not taking his eyes off the road, but clearly still engaged. Raylan is sure he knows there’s more to the story, and there has never been a secret on God’s green earth, great or small, that Boyd Crowder hasn’t wanted to puzzle out once he caught a whiff of it. And he could do it, too, open his talented mouth and let that silver tongue wag until he had teased out probably more than Raylan was aware he knew. </p>
<p>He doesn’t though, is the thing. He just lets the miles slip by underneath the truck’s tires and sits, seemingly content, in the companionable silence. Maybe it’s a sign that their friendship has really grown that deep – maybe it’s a different, more insidious kind of quiet manipulation. Raylan can’t really tell. But going down into the black together, day after day, that creates a bond, a certain kind of respect. So Raylan opens his mouth anyway. <br/>“I can’t remember a time when I haven’t worn it, because my Mama was really adamant that I do.”<br/>“Oh?”<br/>Boyd’s demeanour doesn’t really change, but Raylan can tell he has his full attention now. It gives him a particular kind of buzz, like the tension that sometimes sparks between them that he can’t really explain. Holding Boyd’s absolute focus is a bit like standing under the high midday sun. Invigorating, warming, a necessary part of life. But too much will get you burned. Raylan is particularly good at doing things, wanting things that might burn him. <br/>“She once told me it was a gift; that it was supposed to keep me safe in the dark. Keep the spirits calm and in balance.”</p>
<p>He fiddles a little with the knot that holds the bracelet together. After about ten years, the leather is supple and moulded to his skin, but also worn. He should replace it, but has been reluctant to do so. Maybe it’s because it is one of the few things left in his possession that his mother touched herself. <br/>“And you believe in that?”<br/>“Hmmm?”<br/>Boyd’s question startles him out of his musings and when they lock eyes, he wonders for a moment what Boyd might have read on his face just now. <br/>“Nah, I… actually. I don’t know.”<br/>Thinking about it, he doesn’t really know how to articulate the way he sometimes feels like there’s an emptiness inside of him, a place that is open and raw, missing something. And how, down in the black, the thing that fits in there feels closer to the surface. How that scares him blind. <br/>“I think, if it works, I should be glad to have the protection. And if it doesn’t, well, what’s the harm?”</p>
<p>They both have grown up with the stories and enough Hill blood running in their veins to not dismiss that kind of charm out of hand, so Boyd nods. Then he looks back for a second, cocking his head to the side. <br/>“You know I got your back down there, right?”<br/>He nods up the mountain, which puzzles Raylan for a moment until he realizes with surprise that they’re already on the switchback road, only a couple of minutes from the mine. He watches Boyd in silence for a beat, taking advantage of the fact that he has to actually concentrate on driving now. <br/>“Yeah, I do.” The secretive smile Boyd tries to stifle in response holds a quality that makes a curious warmth bloom underneath Raylan’s breastbone. “Just like I got yours.”<br/>Apparently they do have that kind of friendship after all. <br/>“Yeah?”<br/>“Yeah. Besides,... - the way you talk and nothing’s happened, you must truly have the Devil’s luck, Boyd Crowder. So, I had better stick to the most resourceful, confident, crazy sumbitch in this place, am I right?”<br/>That startles a genuine laugh out of Boyd and Raylan finds his own mouth tugging into a broad smile in return. <br/>“That you should, my friend. Come on, let’s go make some money and blow shit up.”</p>
<p>~*~ After ~*~</p>
<p>Boyd stands right there, still as a statue with the chaos and mayhem swirling around him like a twister has touched down right on top of them. The clunk of heavy machinery and the shouts of men – some competently frantic, some wildly panicking – barely register over the dull roar in his ears. <br/>There’s just the little voice that sounds like himself chanting from far away “It’s over, it’s over, you’re alive, it’s over…” and the image being branded into his memory right now: Raylan, bet over, coughing and wheezing, covered in soot and pulverized rock. The bones of the Hills that are supposed to be inside him turned out like a terrific glamour. Through the haze of fear and washed up adrenaline, Boyd remembers very little of what happened down below. Just flashes of himself, grappling for Raylan’s hand in the dark, tugging them into a run, precious few seconds early. </p>
<p>Thinking in that moment of the men down the line, who had just enough time to hear his shout, and realize the world was about to cave in on their heads, but not enough seconds left to get out. <br/>Remembering Raylan’s frenzied hands scrambling over the rocks that blocked their way, digging like a dog with a bone. <br/>Realizing that the way the wall was moving in front of them meant that if Raylan didn’t stop and let them get at it from the other side, like as not, they were going to be buried when the whole lot suddenly slid their way. <br/>The feel of Raylan’s body folded into his, trying to gentle him through blind panic, pressing bruises into his ribs with his unrelenting grip. <br/>Finally hearing the shouts through the rabble. <br/>The piercing light hitting his face through a widening hole.</p>
<p>Boyd suddenly feels cold and sweaty, faint on his feet and caught in the inexorable urge to step forward and touch Raylan, to assure himself again he’s alive, even though he’s clearly <i>right fucking there</i>. <br/>His feet have moved without so much as by your leave before the thought is even complete and his hand closes around Raylan’s wrist, unbidden, proprietary. Once he feels the rapid, panicky pulse under his fingers, the strange calm is back, like the world is slotting into place despite the chaos around them. <br/>Like they fit into each other and everything is going to be alright for that reason alone.</p>
<p>Raylan looks up sharply at the touch and when they lock eyes, Boyd feels something coiling around them, something he hadn’t realized was there. Until the moment, that is, when he sat in the dark with his arms clamped around Raylan’s chest like a vice, his cheek pressed into the boy’s throat where he could feel the heartbeat through his skin – reassuring him that they were still alive. All the while Raylan’s roughshod voice babbled into his ear about how the darkness was going to get him now and how very afraid he was of that. <br/>Finding himself thinking: <i>”I know you.”</i> with more weight behind it than it should have had, and: <br/><i>”I am the darkness.”</i></p>
<p>“Boyd, I can’t…”<br/>The words shatter the fragile moment and throw him back into his body opposite Raylan, whose eyes now shine with fear and shame, and something hidden, calling from the other side. The rejection stings more than it has any right to, though Boyd isn’t even exactly sure what it is that Raylan’s denying him. His hand tightens around Raylan’s wrist to the point of what must be painful, caught in the undercurrent that swirls like a giant gyre between them, and he opens his mouth to reply – what, he doesn’t know. <br/>And he doesn’t get the chance to find out, since their moment suspended in limbo ends when the EMTs swarming around them cotton on to the fact that they’re among the men freshly dug out of a collapsed mine shaft. Medical attention is non-negotiable, impending drama notwithstanding. </p>
<p>They are tugged apart and Boyd watches Raylan being bustled into one of the waiting ambulances, vanishing under rescue blankets and plied with an oxygen mask that Boyd tries to refuse for himself at the same time unsuccessfully. The last they see of each other is a far away glimpse before the doors close on their respective ambulances and the haze of that cloying, predatory darkness clears away slowly until Boyd finds himself looking down at his clenched fist. When he pries his shaking fingers open with sheer willpower, he recognizes Raylan’s bracelet lying in his open palm. <br/>The leather strap is unwound, frayed – whether it’s been rubbed open in Raylan’s frantic attempts to dig them out or just finally broke from years of wear and tear is impossible to say. It must have ripped off when their hands were forcefully separated earlier and Boyd held on to it without even noticing. </p>
<p>After a few seconds of silent contemplation, he closes his hand again and drifts. <br/>What else is there to do?</p>
<p>~*~</p>
<p>They hadn’t seen each other in the hospital, not that Boyd stayed for longer than to get himself pronounced miraculously unscathed, all things considered. The remnants of shock, a little too much coal dust in his lungs and a few moderately severe contusions is all he has to show for being caught in the most devastating mining accident in the county in a decade. It doesn’t feel real. Like he met a fork in the road of his life and went down the path that wasn’t meant for him (that sudden death was). <br/>The Devil’s luck, indeed. </p>
<p>Boyd only catches a glimpse of Raylan at the funerals, watching three good men being lowered into the ground with the wretched air of a survivor who doesn’t consider himself deserving of the benediction of chance. Like a young man who sees the same fork laying behind him and doesn’t understand why. Boyd means to find him there, after, to talk, but by the time the condolence line is through and he starts scanning the crowd, Raylan is nowhere to be seen. He doesn’t attend the wake, both physically and mentally exhausted in a way he doesn’t recognize in himself, but also strangely restless, caught in the nagging feeling that he’s missing something, a chance, a window of opportunity. That feeling sends him on the road towards the Givens’ home, one hand tight on the wheel, the other in his pocket, closed around the bracelet, the wooden talisman pressed into his palm. </p>
<p>It’s only by the time the door opens to his knocking that he remembers he should have been careful of Arlo answering, but it’s Raylan’s aunt Helen glaring at him through the screen door, a cigarette half burned with hasty drags dangling in her fingers. <br/>“Yes?”<br/>“Miss Helen, I… ah… I was wondering, is Raylan home? I was hoping to talk to him.”<br/>She pins him for a long, silent moment, sharp eyes jumping all over, cataloguing his appearance and demeanour. He makes himself go still under her scrutiny, uncertain of what she’s looking for. <br/>Whatever it is she sees, it loosens her face from open disapproval to something softer, sympathy, maybe, and a hint of sadness. With a small sigh she gestures towards the two-seater on the far side of the porch. </p>
<p>“Boy, you had better sit down. Coffee or booze?”<br/>Boyd is already halfway sitting when he draws up short at her question. Helen’s raised eyebrow tells him she’s serious and he shouldn’t have been surprised, considering. <br/>“I think I could do with a drink right now, actually.”<br/>She just nods like that’s what she expected and vanishes into the hall while he sits himself down. He lets his head rest against the side of the house, eyes falling closed of their own volition. He stays like that until a strong whiff of tobacco and a creak on the seat next to him announces Helen’s presence. Boyd takes the jar of clear liquid offered to him and waits for her to nod before he takes a hearty sip. The alcohol burns sharply in his throat, but it’s the taste of cinnamon and summer bursting on his tongue that widens his eyes with a fond, half-forgotten memory. <br/>“Apple pie!”</p>
<p>Helen salutes him with her glass and takes a sip of her own. <br/>“The way Raylan tells it, you saved his life down there. I figure that deserves a worthy reward at least. Not many such occasions left in that jar,… maybe no more than one or two. Better make use of it where it counts.”<br/>Boyd isn’t going to look a gift horse in the mouth, especially since there’s little chance of either the Crowders or the Givens acquiring more of Mags Bennet’s fabled shine any time soon. So he keeps savouring his glass, waiting Helen out, since she’s obviously not going to let him see Raylan without a <i>talk</i>.</p>
<p>“Why are you here, Boyd Crowder?”<br/>“I’m Raylan’s friend. And I wanted to make sure he was alright?”<br/>Helen turns to study his profile and he lets her for a second, berating himself for sounding so unsure of his purpose, before he flicks his eyes over to her defiantly. <br/>“What? Is that not a good enough reason?”<br/>She stays silent, disquiet settling in her eyes, like she’s puzzling out something about him he hasn’t yet realized himself. It fires him up for some reason, the restlessness creeping into his limbs until his hand slides into his pocket, brushing over leather and wood and the strange calm settles back over him. </p>
<p>He doesn’t know how he puts it together from the exchange alone, a bout of divine intuition, maybe, but suddenly it’s clear as day. <br/>“Raylan… left. Didn’t he?”<br/>“Like he was always going to.”<br/>Through the fog of realization, he can’t make sense of her expression in the moment: <br/>A bit of surprise that he knows Raylan well enough to figure it out, the calm serenity of acceptance and something else, an undercurrent that strikes a chord. <br/>“And you weren’t one to let the momentum of this tragedy pass him by without a good shove, weren’t you?”<br/>It comes out harsh, laced with a kind of bitter hurt that surprises even himself. <br/>Whether from the fact that he won’t get to find out what that moment truly was that passed between them at the mine, or that Raylan didn’t care enough about it,… about him, to say goodbye at least, he isn’t sure. </p>
<p>Helen inclines her head in acquiescence, weathering his sudden hostility entirely unfazed. <br/>“Tell me. Was there ever a chance that boy was going to be able to make a life, down there, in the black?”<br/>The question, when he considers it seriously after seconds of despondent rage, takes the steam right out of him. <br/>“No. There wasn’t.”<br/>She nods. <br/>“There wasn’t. Because he’s strong and brave, with the blood of them hills running in his veins. And he sure is bull-headed, sometimes has the sense of self-preservation God gave a gnat. But that hole…” she swirls the last of the shine before knocking it back, fingers tightening visibly around her glass,”… that hole was going to swallow him, one way or another. So, damn right I gave him a shove out the door and made sure he left this place behind to go find a life he can actually <i>live</i>.”<br/><i>Before he finds someone to talk him out of leaving.</i> rings unsaid, but clear as day. </p>
<p>Boyd finds himself cursing in his mind, fingers burrowing deeper in his pocket, curled around the talisman he meant to give back to Raylan, which shouldn’t feel like such a lifeline right now. He thinks of how Raylan can’t be more than an hour down the road, and about what it would take to catch up with him…<br/>“You are never going to leave Harlan County. Are you, Boyd Crowder?”<br/>Somehow that feels more like a statement than a question. He turns to meet her eyes, doesn’t know what she reads there of his thoughts. Notices how her eyes widen, something like fear gathering in them, like the realization that she miscalculated and doesn’t know what to do with that. If he weren’t so adept at reading people, he would never know. But he does now. And that’s what shocks him back from the edge he was teetering on and into an answer to her question. <br/>“No. I guess, I won’t.”<br/><i>Because I am the darkness. Nothing is going to swallow me.</i></p>
<p>Helen tips her nails idly against the glass, the clink loud and jarring in the heavy silence that hangs between them. Then she stands, putting her hand on his shoulder with a light squeeze. <br/>“You can stay here until you’ve finished your drink.”<br/>Then, she turns and walks to the door, hesitating for just a moment behind the open screen. <br/>“And then you need to let him go.”</p>
<p>~*~*~</p>
<p>Boyd has a lock box. <br/>Not in a bank of course, nor in his childhood home, where any keepsakes he might have cared about might fall prey to Bowman’s snooping or become inaccessible when his father throws him out of the house for real one of these days. No, one summer, when he was about fourteen, he lugged a bag of concrete and some metal sheeting out into the woods near his grandma’s cabin – who was the one telling him to go get a foxhole and tell no one where it was, not even her – and dug a hole into the side of a hill. He made himself a space where he could put anything too precious to lose or have on him at all times (to have on him when he gets thrown in jail, really) in a place no one but him could find by the direction of a few very specific landmarks. </p>
<p>Now, years later, it’s overgrown and nearly invisible, even to his discerning eye and he makes sure to disturb the plant cover as little as possible when he pops the lock and props up the lid with a sturdy branch. The contents are all quickly accounted for, dusty and untouched. A bundle of cash, some field post letters his grandfather sent from the European theatre – including a series of raunchy postcards he brought with him – a thin photo album with pictures, mainly of his mother and a few pieces of her jewellery. And now Raylan’s bracelet, which he puts into the small jewel box. </p>
<p>He considered giving the bracelet back to Helen, let her see if she could get it to Raylan in some way once he arrived wherever it was he was going. But the moment had passed then on the porch, and he wasn’t particularly inclined to call her out again. Besides, something inside him (the thing that stirred down in the black, that called for Raylan to be… what?) rebels against the thought of giving it up. He doesn’t let himself dwell on it too long and closes the lid, locking everything in place in short order. The ache that sits beneath his breastbone is sure to dull with time and distance.</p>
<p>And just maybe, down the line, Raylan’s path will bring him back in a full circle. <br/>Boyd stands, brushing the dirt off his knees and makes his way back cautiously. <br/>Maybe, down the line, they’ll get another chance to dance with the Devil. <br/>See where that moment might have gone.</p>
  </div></div>
</body>
</html>